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The Xs Review/Transcript
Truman: 'And now, a rabbit from a hat! '''Kimla: '*swells up, coughs* Allergic...*faints* 'Truman: '...Presto? (Intro) So, get ready for the first and last time that you're ever gonna hear about this one. The X's was a short-lived Nicktoon that came out in 2005 and it gets very little recognition even to this day. And probably for good reason...I'm sure that this show has fans, I think plenty of them have already even commented on the series, but...I'm sure the number of fans of this show is...small. The X's ''lasted only 20 episodes and it has ''never been rereleased since it originally aired. I'm lucky that I could find any footage of this one at all, since this is one of the few shows the world seems to have collectively forgotten about. So, please pardon the video quality on this one. This is ''literally ''the best that I could do. And quite honestly, this show just...reeks of wasted potential. The show focuses on the X's. They're your average American family except that they're spies. I bring up what I said in my ''Minions ''review; a show about a family with an interesting quirk like this, whether they all be supervillains or super spies, it's a great premise. I just don't know why anyone didn't actually want to ''use ''it. Maybe I just got unlucky and the two surviving episodes that I managed to find were absolute duds, I-I don't know. In the first one of them, we see this family of super spies doing nothing super spy related. Instead it's about the little brother having a crush on the teenage girl's friend, something you could find in literally any show ever. Being a spy is barely even mentioned here and going through the episode list, a lot of them seem to be on that same level. The second episode was about them going against their super spy rival, and promptly getting their asses handed to them. Repeatedly. The biggest problem that I can tell, that this show has, is a trapping that a lot of this high-concept stuff tends to have, and that's that the characters are very, very rote. The father of the X's is your typical cartoon father, a strong man who is stupid and having ''nothing'' else about him. Him being a spy doesn't add anything at all. It's the same with the typical cartoon mom, the typical cartoon teenage daughter, the typical cartoon bratty son. The X's ''is a cartoon that '''barely '''even tries, to the point where I'm actually having difficulty thinking of anything else to say about it. There's a reason why no one talks about this show anymore. I mean, I've seen ''plenty other shows that have been lost to sands of time, like Robot Jones ''or ''Little Clowns of Happytown, but honestly, The X's is on another level. The only reason that people ever bring this one up is to say "Hey, I remember that!" or "...What was that about again?" I'll tell you what it was about. It was about crap. Each of the 20 episodes is 11 minutes of crap, that even the people around the time don't really remember. The art style I'm not the biggest fan of either. I don't know, the character designs don't really do it for me. The "heavy shading and no outlines" tries to give off a dark and mysterious vibe, but that's something that the writing can't justify. Oh yeah, then-then there's the writing, it-it's not very good. The humor of this show is bad. There are plenty of times where they try to tell jokes, but each of them is cliched and derivative. And of course we have...the voice acting. That's some place that this show went all-in ''on. It wanted to go for the '''big name '''voice actors. But if ''The Buzz on Maggie ''proved anything, good voice acting doesn't make a good show. In fact, it's kinda the opposite. This might be just me, but I have a low tolerance for people who are paid to do a ''specific voice, again and again and again, it just takes me right out of the experience. It usually breaks my immersion when I can't watch Sarah Lynn from Bojack Horseman ''without thinking of Mabel from ''Gravity Falls. It is ''always'' distracting. Tuesday's friend is Gretchen, from Recess! I cannot like your show if you're constantly reminding me of a better show, and they constantly do that with the voice acting. Speaking of which, Patrick Warburton plays the father. I have several issues with this. I-I really wish, and this sounds completely...backwards but, I really wish that people stopped using Patrick Warburton to play...Patrick Warburton's famous roles. 'Every single time '''I hear Patrick Warburton in a cartoon, I hear Kronk. And guess who he's playing every time he's in a cartoon? He's playing Kronk! Another version of Kronk! Again and again and again and again! It's gettin' old! This is just Kronk that another show stole. Every single time I hear Patrick Warburton playing the same exact role. Cartoons like this just take "character acting" to another level. Even if that's not true, it's just always the same problem. Not helping is the voice is incredibly similar to Archer's voice from well, ''Archer. You know, another cartoon that ''coincidentally''' happens to star '''spies'. Maybe The X's ''is some weird sequel or prequel where Archer settled down and married and had some stupid kids with no personality. So if you find yourself lost in this confusing world and you somehow end up wondering "what happened to ''The X's?", let me give you the answer. No one cared because there's nothing to care about. I want to keep these videos around ten minutes, but there's just...nothing to say here. And no, it's not because I only got a few episodes. I-I can tell that the rest of the show is like this, quality of both of the episodes are...quite consistent. The villain is an electric ball...lava lamp thing, that's...memorable I guess? But even after watching this show, I don't remember anything else about him. I mean if you look at the episodes synopsis, we've got an episode about the two kids being forced to share a room, a prankster being forced to give up pranks, the old "if someone picks on you, that means they like you" Chestnut. The Chestnut that needs to die in a fire. Look, if you're interested in family spy fun, watch the Spy Kids films...the first two, anyway. If you wanna watch a show that's kinda like this, I'd point you in the direction of The Replacements. You know, if you could find that ''one, since footage from that show is as hard to find as well. But it had a spy mother, and...with one fourth of the spy characters they managed to do...so much more with the spy premise. Goddamn, I need to watch that show more. I guess I do feel kinda bad that this one isn't available anywhere. I firmly believe that, like, every single show should be on Amazon or some other digital distribution service. Ya might not make much money from them, but it doesn't really...cost you anything. And I've learned that there's someone out there who is a passionate fan of ''everything. Nothing in this world exists without passionate fans of it. 'Announcer: '''Next on Nickelodeon, it's- ''(Shows the Mr. Meaty intro) (No end credits music this time) Category:Nick-o-Rama Category:Transcripts